


To Take Our Second Chance

by Lunaarz



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Depression, F/M, Final Fantasy XIV: Stormblood Spoilers, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Suicide Attempt, Unnamed Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-09
Updated: 2020-11-09
Packaged: 2021-03-09 07:22:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27467137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lunaarz/pseuds/Lunaarz
Summary: The Warrior of Light is broken following the events of the battle at Ala Mhigo and her subsequent defeat of Zenos yae Galvus. She finds herself in the very last place she should be visiting alone.
Relationships: Zenos yae Galvus/Warrior of Light
Kudos: 23





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> TRIGGER WARNING: Mention of Suicide, Thoughts of Suicide, and Suicide Attempt. Please be safe!

Abalathia’s skull - it was a mistake to fly over Bloodhowe.

But that realization was hours ago, several dozen carcasses of Minotaurs ago. And now, the sun had long since set, the fiery and defiant orange sky was wrestled into the chill of night and she knelt.

She did not curse her blessing. She didn’t – but the pain…

Z - no - she couldn’t say it. She blinked back tears.

She had felt his suffering, she accepted him. She knew suffering too.

He deserved better than an unmarked grave and a stone box she could tell was too small for his frame.

Her hands flew to her mouth and she choked back a sob. It wasn’t fair.

Damn her echo. Damn it all.

Damn Zenos.

Damn him!

Damn him!

The unholy wail that left her throat would have scared even the shades lurking in the crypts.

He told her to live. He commanded it, like a promise that he would be there too.

He was right about her – how lonely she was. He knew because he lived it. She knew because she felt the emptiness in his breast, the crushing, suffocating void, and it felt familiar.

He had the audacity to leave her behind to suffer alone, after they both had a taste of one another, of a chance to feel… something.

Her tears fell freely as she spiraled. She wished she never met him, never knew happiness. One could not truly miss what one had never experienced after all. But he left her wanting and waiting – now – for eternity.

Eternity.

An eternity of suffering. There would never be another.

She was going mad.

It was all Hydaelyn’s fault! Her gift – wretched curse – to feel everyone’s emotions to the point where she couldn’t feel her own. The price for a sensitive echo – a gift.

Through sticky saline fingers she laughed.

Weeping for her enemy! No – for _the_ enemy. He wasn’t her enemy, he was….

She ran out of air and gasped, chest and shoulders rattling, bowed over on the packed dirt floor beside his grave.

He was her friend.

He… he was her hope, an unmistakably chaotic black void in the cloying light surrounding her.

She loved him.

Pulling the short dagger from its sheath at her hip, she contemplated ruining it against the stone to etch his name. She wanted him to have better. It weighed heavily in her hands.

But it would be defiled if people knew – a greater disrespect. She knew this and curled her hand around the blade. Squeezing until she drew blood. She could not even give him a name.

She was probably the only person in the world who cared.

By two hands, she dragged herself forward by a fulm and rested lazily against the tomb, naught but inches away from him. She touched the cold stone. Blood streaked from her fingertips leaving a trail of her affections.

The sky was clear. She found herself staring. Zenos stared at her as he brought the blade to his throat.

Damn him! One more thing he took from her.

The metal was warm against her neck from being wrapped in her fingers for so long.

She thought about his final moments. She wanted a scar to match even if the evidence would rot away with time.

She wanted… she couldn’t fathom finding a second joy in her life. Who else could share her burdens?

No one.

She was alone.

He did this to her.

He won in the end.

She smiled.

“My friend.”


	2. Chapter 2

The music of steel on steel was like an orchestra. The blade wretched from her hands, she stared down the length of a katana.

“I told you to live, my friend.”

Her eyes snapped up to meet –

Brown hair, green eyes. Who-?

“…Zenos?” she whispered incredulously.

“For the sole pleasure left to… left to us in this wretched world…” He knelt by her side, stabbing his blade into the earth. “… live.”

She smeared blood over the man’s cheekbones when she touched the unfamiliar face.

“Zenos?” She asked again. She incorrectly assumed her body ran dry of tears. “It…” she pulled her hand away like she was stung. “It cannot be. I watched you die.”

“A curious thing to wake up in another’s body. And…” he looked at the slab of granite. “You’ve led me right back to mine. I’ve been looking for it since I woke up.”

She threw her arms around his waist and sobbed out nearly knocking him into the dirt.

“I missed you,” her voice was muffled against his hip.

Zenos stilled, before moving his borrowed hand to comb through her hair. “You’ve become a mess in my absence,” he chided, “How am I supposed to enjoy fighting you when you’ve allowed yourself to become so pathetic?”

“I missed you.” She said with conviction. Lowering her head to his chest. She gripped his arm.

“What would the savages think of you, clinging to your enemy like a desperate lover?”

“The savages be damned.” She whispered. “You are no enemy of mine, my friend. You saved me.” She looked him in the eyes, the wrong eyes. But the soul was there. “You’ve saved me twice, if I count today.”

“I’m glad I lived to see this change in you.”

“You!” her voice quivered. He stroked her rage, “I wanted to kill myself! -Because of you!” The last note cracked. “Y-You selfish bastard! How could you! H-How could you leave me like that!”

“My friend,” he held her head steady between his hands, “I’m glad you yet live, too. No one can take that fire away, not even you.”

Face twisting with agonizing pain, she tore away from him and hid her face. Her heart twisted, on the precipice of exploding, imploding. She knew not.

He stood and ran his hand over the grave.

With a sharp thrust of his body weight, he pushed the lid ajar.

He laughed dryly.

The warrior followed stood with shaky doe legs, bracing herself against his arm.

She looked. A gasped escaped her.

It was empty.

“I watched them stuff your body in this hole." She closed her eyes and willed the memory away. "It was here not but a few days ago.”

“So, it has been taken.”

He shook the warrior free and moved around the coffin to push the lid closed.

“I think I know where I will find it.” He mused.

“Take me with you.” The words escaped her before she could think better of them.

His eyes gleamed curiously. “You would help me?”

She licked her dry, cracked, salty lips, “I… I don't want to do this,” she scanned her hand over the backdrop of the palace, “… I can’t do this anymore.”

A beat of silence passed between them.

“You offered me something before we fought,” she started slowly. “Do you remember?”

“I offered you a place by my side.” He quickly added, “I didn’t expect you to take it.”

“To while away the hours,” she whispered, recanting the memory like a precious dream, “as friend, as confidante…. Zenos, please.” She stepped up, grabbing his forearms again. “Please, take me away from here. We deserve to live fully.”

“Let us take our second chance.”


End file.
